Gifts of God
Dorothea, was that truly her name?
Does it matter after all these years
so long passed the heartache of a child's tears?
This tale remembered from a lifetime that unwinds
once forgotten and lost without reason or rhyme
instilled the promise of every gift of God most sublime.
When I was a child, myself, the very gift of God,
the sisters at the children's home
wore floor-length clothes and seemed less people, more like clones;
a parade of habits veiled dark brown and indigo black
swept the floors where footsteps echoed and clacked
and as time passed, we learned parents never come back;
most names of children and nuns alike were not heard or said
by little children hiding beneath the covers of their beds
in dormitories of the orphanage where innocence was often left;
unwanted little faces washed clean in salted tears
shaking each to their bones without dreams and only fears
of the nuns who frowned as they drew closer to the tiny dears;
there was one nun, a sister if you please, who on occasion, maybe two
wore a smile of ease and seemed kind and caring too
knowing that little children need their hopes constantly renewed;
Sister Mary Dorothea, one, singular gift of God giving love to each child
often embracing the small, the meek, the wild and the mild
with words of love, comfort, motherly promises to free them from exile;
she sailed above the wooden floors, lilting to share her soft prayer
angelic in her gliding approach to express her deepest care
and safe and secure, she guided children through all they endured there.
One demonstrative expression of God's gift of everlasting love
for the promise of the future yet to come from heaven above.
Inspired by both memory and Julia Ward's contest for the nun - Dorothea,
names may have been changed to protect the innocent.
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